It is one way to kill a half hour. I get into a snit and do it rabidly for a few days and then not again for 8 or 9 months.

It can certainly be addictive, especially when you feel like you're on a roll. I admittedly "binge" like that from time to time, especially over in the math section. Though I've had some productive off-site talk too with some of the top-10 folks who know their stuff.

Originally Posted By: Daark

Yahoo! Answers seems to have a filter that keeps out the majority of intelligence, combined with some sort of hi-tech *stupid magnet* that attracts top quality "dumb".

Answer forums such as Y!A seem to significantly attract the kind of people who insist on asking the nearest human being for answers before they at least try figuring it out on their own. As we say in the engineering world, "RTFM!"

The real tragedy is that yahoo.com itself IS a search engine. So there are lots of questions that could be answered with a 5 second search on the internet, but instead come from people who were either too incompetent or clueless to just scroll to the top of the page and do so. Though I think it's equally silly when somebody answers a question, and cites a rival site like Google as their source.

(Never mind searching Yahoo Answers itself to see if the same question has already been posted and answered there. For example, "Why is the sky blue?" has already been asked there literally over 3,000 times. That sure doesn't stop new people from asking, though.)

I'm reasonably certain that Yahoo Answers has a higher percentage of trolls than other answer forums, but the sheer amount of genuine stupidity is mind boggling.

Sometimes it's really hard to tell one from the other. In fact, I've never seen a forum where it was more ambiguous. For example, a new-comer who thinks he's really witty will post "Is the earth really round? I think it's flat." Then after reading all the hateful replies, he says "Hey, I was obviously kidding! What's wrong with you?" Then it has to be explained to the person that we honestly couldn't tell, because some people really DO post things that ARE that stupid, and with complete sincerity.

This is when I first heard of the term Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing." You have to lay the sarcasm on REALLY thick there to make a joke come across as a joke.

Flesh and Bones_______________“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ~ Charles Bukowski